Episode 136: Expanding Access to Primary Care: Nurse Practitioners

Oct 2, 2026

50:33

Episode Description

Primary care is getting harder to access. More than 100 million Americans lack a usual source of primary care because of provider shortages where they live. And the problem isn't confined to rural areas. Massachusetts has more physicians per person than any other state, yet in a 2025 survey of 15 large metro areas, new patients in Boston waited longer for an appointment than in any other city surveyed.

Nurse practitioners are already filling that gap. There are now more than 461,000 licensed NPs in the United States, delivering nearly a billion patient visits a year, and they tend to live and work in the communities that other providers have never ventured into. What many of them lack is the infrastructure to open and sustain a practice of their own: billing, insurance contracts, technology, and data.

In this episode, guest host Dr. Wendy L. Wright, a family nurse practitioner who owns her own clinic in Amherst, New Hampshire, talks with three colleagues from Duet, a company built around NP practice owners that brings nurse practitioners together with entrepreneurs, investors, and business operators. They discuss why this moment matters, what makes ownership possible, what changes when nurse practitioners get credit for the care they already deliver, and where an NP might begin when starting their own clinic.

Guest Host